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ERA, WHIP, and DICE are all acronyms that make some people nervous, but true baseball fans should know them. They often seem difficult to calculate as well, but this article will prove that it's not necessarily difficult, provided you've got the background understanding.

Steps

Method1

ERA (Earned Run Average)

ERA[1] is one of the basic stats to determine the talent of a pitcher, and it is often very good to use. Lower ERA's are considered better, and the current average ERA in Major League Baseball is around 4.50.

1

Take any pitcher and calculate how many earned runs (ER) the pitcher gave up (these can be different from regular runs given up; most places with pitching statistics will show both) and how many innings he has pitched.

Method2

Save (SV)

A save occurs only when a pitcher meets certain conditions in a game. Saves are normally recorded by closers, but can be recorded by any pitcher. All of the following steps are required conditions for a pitcher to record a save.[2]

Note: A Blown Save occurs when a pitcher has a save opportunity but relinquishes the lead.

1

Make sure that the pitcher was the last pitcher in a game in which his team won.

2

Make sure that he is not the pitcher who recorded the win in the game.

3

Make sure that he pitched at least 1/3 of an inning (got at least one batter out).

4

Make sure that the pitcher fulfills one of the following three conditions:

He enters the game with a lead of no more than three runs and pitches for at least one inning.

He enters the game with the game-tying run in the on-deck circle and finishes the game.

He pitches for at least three innings.

Method3

DICE (Defense Independent Component ERA)

DICE is a recently developed stat that is somewhat sparingly used by purveyors of advanced statistics. Nonetheless, though, it holds value as a pitching statistic.

Tips

There are tons of other pitching statistics, such as Wins, Losses, Holds, Strikeouts per Nine Innings Pitcher (K/9), and Complete Games, to name a few. You might like to experiment with a few to settle on which ones you enjoy using and following most.

ERA is best used as a performance measure for starting pitchers, as a reliever who pitches 80 innings a season with one bad outing can push his ERA up more than a half run for the entire year. WHIP is a fair measure of all pitchers.

This can be a great way to get sports-loving children interested in statistics.

Dabble in with sabermetric stats and regular stats. It will help back up stat-based arguments.

If you are really into baseball stats, consider joining SABR[4], the Society for American Baseball Research.

Warnings

There can never be a single stat that can perfectly judge every pitcher, so don't ever claim that a certain stat is perfect.

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wikiHow is a wiki similar to Wikipedia, which means that many of our articles are written collaboratively. To create this article, 13 people, some anonymous, worked to edit and improve it over time. This article has also been viewed 36,847 times.